User:Nissa174/Toy advertising

Campaign Strategies and Intentions
Promoting Beauty Standards

Many toys help produce and reinforce beauty standards, particularly through toys such as dolls and beauty products targeted towards girls and young women. Eurocentric beauty standards dominate representation in popular media and toy marketing in many places around the world. Common features emphasized in these images are of white people or characters with fair or tanned skin, tall and slender bodies, thin waists, and long blonde hair. Such features are widely associated with beauty, simultaneously creating associations of darker skin with unattractiveness, and in the process, creating and reinforcing existing racial hierarchies within beauty ideals. The impacts of Eurocentric representation and beauty ideals also go even further than children’s toys. Research has shown that Black influencers on social media platforms typically receive lower salaries and experience greater difficulty arranging or receiving sponsorships and brand deals, as well as widely face slower rises to popularity on social media compared to White influencers, contributing to the overall lack of representation in beauty-related media.

From digitally editing model's skin to resemble the plasticity of a doll or promising young girls that they can achieve the perfect, unblemished appearance if they follow a certain makeup routine, the features of toys such as the Barbie doll are idealized branded in popular culture and media. Advertisements for beauty and makeup-related toys targeting girls often promote products by using phrases such as "get perfect skin" – a marketing strategy that instills the belief that those who use these products will achieve a Barbie doll or princess-like appearance that is widely considered ideal. However, many toy companies have made attempts to expand their definitions and representations of beauty by creating dolls and characters from diverse backgrounds. Products such as Bratz and American Girl include dolls of different race and ethnicities, providing more children with characters they can relate to

Despite their efforts, however, both American Girl and Bratz have faced some criticisms since their creations. For instance, the American Girl dolls are only offered in a few ethnicities and the individualized personal narratives that accompany each doll represent a contrast between the European and non-European dolls. For example, based on their narratives, the Mexican immigrant doll, Josefina, who is tied deeply to her ethnic and cultural roots would have a harder time adjusting to new environments compared to the Swedish immigrant doll, Kristen. Bratz dolls have also garnered criticisms by cultural critics who claim that the oversexualization of their race and clothing serve to promote and reinforce the otherness of minorities.

Many toy manufacturing companies have also expanded representation beyond able-bodied ideals by creating dolls with disabilities. The British toymaker, Makies, has a line of customized dolls with disabilities, including dolls with hearing and walking aids, as well as guide dogs. The online toy store Lime Tree Kids provided representation of individuals with Down Syndrome in its line of "Baby Dolls with Down syndrome". Taking a similar approach with their popular Barbie brand, Mattel has also created dolls with disabilities, namely, the "Share-a-Smile-Becky" who was introduced as Barbie's friend in 1997. Becky was designed to have a pink and purple wheelchair, and in the years following its creation, Becky was transformed into various different characters with a wheelchair, such as a school photographer and Paralympic. Despite the popularity of the doll, it was discontinued due to its inability to fit into Barbie's world, such as in the Barbie DreamHouse, as a result of Becky's wheelchair. In 2019, Mattel launched a new and improved doll that allowed for increased inclusivity compared to Becky with its wheelchair accommodating dolls of all body types and its own ramp which granted accessibility in the Barbie DreamHouse.

"Strategies" –> "Targeting gender"

Pasted from section "exclusive kids only":

Toys are specially designed for boys and girls and are exclusively showcased in separate aisles. Children begin to develop stereotypical, gender based knowledge during preschool and by the age of seven they have strong, established views on toy gender. Research found that when children aged seven to eleven were asked to choose a toy, most selected traditional gendered based occupational toys, reflecting role play. Children throughout this age group were also more likely to create rivalry with the opposite sex. Self-identity makes toy's distinctly gender bias progressing sale transactions.

Edited (will be added to "targeting gender" section):

Many companies selling toys also target children based on their genders. This is done in a variety of ways, such as how toys exclusively showcased in separate aisles depending on the intended gender or placing images of boys or girls on a certain product. Children begin to develop stereotypical, gender based knowledge during preschool and by the age of seven they have strong, established views on toy gender [38]. Research found that when children aged seven to eleven were asked to choose a toy, most selected traditional gendered based occupational toys, reflecting role play. Furthermore, studies have shown that children (boys and girls) between the ages of 3-11 years old held negative evaluations of boys violating gender roles involving physical appearance, with the concept of boys wearing girls’ clothing was equated as being almost as bad as the concept of theft. Overall, many similar gender norm violations of boys are also considered more negative than when girls violated norms, such as wearing clothes intended for boys or having short hair.